Foreigners are fascinated with our politics. Why?
- Thread starter Ivanovich
- Start date
It started off well enough before it descended into paranoia. I wonder how achilles28 feels about militia groups. I wonder if he was wearing his fatigues while writing his dissertation.
I think Obama is the best thing that could have happened to America. You have an intelligent Constitutional scholar at the helm who really gives a shit about the country and its people. Someone who is not cloistered, and who can take responsible action after thinking it through. America voted well. Its important allies agree.
It was as high as 86% recently:
http://www.buyusa.gov/harrisburg/can_ustrade.html
Regardless, the number is significant and the relationship is critical to Canada. There is no disputing that fact.
Where did you get the idea that Candiants want "cradle-to-grave Big Government Socialism."? We've had a conservative government for years now. A government that is focusing on free trade and reducing government regulation of industry.
Is your thoughts that Canadians want big government just anecdotal evidence? Or is it because our political system is setup similarly to the British, and therefore you conclude that the objectives are the same? I ask because I find the opposite where I live. There is a lot of Canadian pride in my area right now simply because the government did not significantly intervene during the crisis as happened in the USA. Furthermore, great uproar was caused when the government went along with the USA in loaning GM money. I just don't see the desire for big government in Canada as you do and am curious as to where you got this idea.
Unfortunately, many of us living here do not. While I voted for Obama, I did so with the belief that he would bring about "change". Thus far, with the notable exception of a Health Care bill that is poorly designed, badly thought through and had to be shoved through the House and Senate in a gangster-bribe and threaten manner that was entirely partisan, I've not seen anything positive from Obama. I am thoroughly disappointed, especially in his lack of Wall Street reform and the watered down, again, poorly thought through, populist angled bill that he's trying to push through now.
There are 6 million Americans living abroad, many traders have a trading income that has enabled them to trade and live anywhere in the world, Why should an IP mean anything at all?
You know full well that he wanted to get more done and in a more meaningful way. But look at all of the crazy opposition ready to label him a traitor, terrorist and so on, doing everything it its power to stop anything and everything he tries to do. Who is more to blame? There is the ideal world and then there is the real world. Pragmatists live in the real world. The US has a lot of exceptionally bright people. However it has far more than its share of crazies. The US is being held back by these crazies who are, for all intents and purposes, marionette dolls being manipulated by self-serving special interests. And then there is the rampant paranoid schizophrenia seeking expression...
And being a moderator on an obscure message board entitles you to define Patriot for the rest of us?
You sure you don't love Canada more the the US, you seem to have no problem with the "vitriol and venom spewed" on Americans by Canadians?
And for the record it's not foreigners (non US citizens) having an interest in US politics that I have issue with. But the obsessed haughty arrogant condescending "Americans are too stupid to know what's good for them" mentality that many exhibit here daily.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, no matter how utterly irrelevant it may be.
The idea that Canadians want Big Government is a simply not true.
No Canadian I know wants Big Government. There's a dawning realization about what that idea really means. I look at the projected numbers for how much of the U.S.A.'s vaunted GDP (that staggering number when viewed as a percentage of world GDP) will be comprised of government spending and I wonder how such a system could work going forward. What does the 'product' in GDP actually refer to when 30% of it is related to the Feds and Big Health?
At any rate, Canadians are looking for a small 'C' conservative alternative. The Liberals are wallowing in the backwaters with one joke leader after another. We won't see another Liberal majority government up here for a while.
If you're talking about health care, then he should have curbed Pelosi a bit with her extreme left push. I've got news for you (or maybe you realize this, I don't know) but the people of the United States are not left. They're not right either, but they lean to conservative values. I don't care what the polls say, the majority of people are silent, angry and conservative, and religious - based on the Christian values that were founded on the country's formation. I'm not arguing religion here, nor am I arguing anything at all, really. But if government tries to lead the country to the left, the majority of Americans are going to resist.
Sure, there is a loud and overly obnoxious left wing progressive movement, and there's a neocon lunatic right wing fringe as well. But given the choice? Most independent conservatives sympathize with the lunatics on the right much easier, because they want SMALLER government. They want government out of our lives. They want to leave the American dream up to Americans. We want to be responsible for our own destiny. We don't want cradle to grave benefits. When a left leaning government - either in the senate or the White House - starts pushing us in the direction of Europe (through either real or perceived socialist behavior) we go ballistic. I consider my beliefs middle of the road. On the polls that random folks have posted in this forum, I lean right, but am pretty much in the middle. However, fiscally, I am conservative. I believe I should be responsible for my actions. At the same time I want the chance to do as I please in my life, so long as I do not adversely affect my fellow Americans. That is our dream - a laissez faire government that lets us push to our own destiny.
We're not getting it. Most of us were pissed at Bush, too, because he was supposed to be a conservative. He was right wing, alright, but no where near conservative and we voted him out. We'll do the same to Obama because he's not the centrist he proclaimed himself to be in his campaign. Or at least the centrist we thought he was proclaiming to be.